Social Implications and Challenges of E-Business

Are we in the midst of a second Internet boom? If so, how it was different from the first boom of the late 1990s, which went bust spectacularly in 2001? As the stock market recovered rapidly from the dot.com crash, there have been some marked changes in the way that the Internet and e-business has evolved. In particular, behind the headlines, such as the multibillion dollar purchase of Skype by eBay and Google’s sky-rocketing share prices, many smaller but innovative and profitable dot.coms have been launched, and numerous private and public sector organisations are being radically transformed. Most importantly, many radical changes predicted during the late 1990s, but dismissed during the aftermath of the dot.com crash, are materalising. In many ways, the Internet boom itself has never stopped. Even during the stock market downturn, people from all over the world continued to join the Internet to search, chat, e-mail, play and spend money. In the business world, and in governmental and other organisations throughout the world, new strategies, new business models and new organisational designs have been introduced. The way we work, play, communicate, learn and shop has been significantly transformed; and the boundaries between sectors, products, services, channels and organisations are increasingly eroded. Most importantly, the distinctions between work, home, education, leisure and so on are increasingly blurred (Li, 2006). E-business is not limited to the private sectors; the public sectors also are experimenting with new ways of information and services delivery via electronic channels and are actively facilitating and shaping the development of infrastructure and services. However, the challenges have been extremely complex and many e-government and e-public services initiatives have failed to deliver the anticipated benefits, and there have been numerous project failures. More significantly, the development of e-business is facilitating profound social changes and is itself shaped by a plethora of social forces. Due to the rapid pace of developments, many such issues have not been systematically examined. In 2005, I edited a special issue of the Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations (JECO) on the “Social Aspects of E-Business,” in my capacity as the chair of the E-Business and E-Government Special Interest Group (SIG) of the British Academy of Management (BAM) (Li, 2005). However, due to the limited space in the journal’s special issue, many significant issues were left out. This edited book will provide the capacity to present a greater number of papers in order to address these emerging issues in a more comprehensive fashion.